Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice

Disgaea 3 made the leap to the Playstation 3, and things were now moved to an even-sillier setting - a twisted "academy" for demons where ditchers are honor students and those who attend classes are delinquents.  Befitting this, characters are now assigned to Class Clubs and get bonuses based on who they're seated next to in the classroom, and elements like the Class World exist to bolster character stats.  Characters can now mix-and-match unique abilities thanks to the Evility system, and monsters can temporarily morph into weapons with the new Magichange mechanic.  However, a less-auspicious element soon showed itself in the game's DLC, which infamously racked up in price to well over the sticker price of the actual game ($86 in total bought separately or $50 in an all-encompassing mega-pack).  There's still much to offer here for powergamers and those who love to grind out stats, but it's not hard to see why this is one of the less highly-regarded games in the franchise.  The main character being voiced by disgraced actor Vic Mignogna probably does it no favors either. 

Developer: Nippon Ichi Software

Publisher: Nippon Ichi Software

Released: 2008, 2011

Platforms: Playstation 3, Vita

Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories

 The first Disgaea was a slow-starter in the west, but it did well enough over time to get a reprint and eventually a sequel in the Playstation 2's later days.  Naturally, the game underwent a significant visual overhaul, as well as adding in new classes, features like the Dark World and the Land of Carnage (adding even more content for die-hard grinders and fans of puzzle maps), unique abilities for each character and class, and a strange new "Felony" system that would grant characters more experience for committing various "crimes" like attaining a certain level or killing a set number of enemies.  At its core, though, not a great deal is different from the original game - grinding and overcoming the monstrously difficult postgame content is still the main draw of the experience.  It provides a lot of that for stat-grinders, but those looking for a more gripping storyline experience or gameplay less based on sheer numbers may want to check elsewhere.

Developer: Nippon Ichi Software

Publisher: Nippon Ichi Software, Koei

Released: 2006

Platforms: Playstation 2, Playstation Portable, Windows, Mac OS, Linux

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness

 Released in 2003 to little attention at first (probably in no small part due to graphics just barely better than the PS1's Final Fantasy Tactics and being a limited release by the then-niche publisher Atlus), Disgaea slowly built its way up to being a cult classic thanks to its sense of humor and deceptively deep gameplay despite its cute aesthetics, working in elements of both puzzle-solving and strategy gaming.  But more than that, the game was built as a huge timesink, with randomized dungeons, customized equipment and stats that reached into seven digits, allowing for die-hard gamers to grind out some truly game-breaking possibilities and provide a true challenge in a plethora of super-bosses that would require absolute mastery of the game's mechanics (and tons of grinding) to overcome.  Things which I too enjoyed about the game, but in remembering the 100+ hour slog I endured, I have little will to revisit again.  Still, for the most die-hard of stat grinders, Nippon Ichi has your bases covered.

Developer: Nippon Ichi Software

Publisher: Atlus, Nippon Ichi Software, Koei, Square Enix

Released: 2003

Platforms: Playstation 2, PSP, DS, Windows, Mac OS, Linux, PS4, Switch

Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness

After two passable but mostly forgettable outings in Disgaea 3 and 4, the franchise returns to its original protagonists and setting for a new adventure.  But does this return to form redeem the series for more casual fans, or just push it further into irrelevance for all but its most die-hard followers?

Nippon Ichi's Disgaea is a very love-it-or-hate-it franchise; you either love it for its deep gameplay, sharp sense of humor and surprisingly smart storytelling in spite of its cutesy visuals, or it just becomes a bore for the same reasons.  I personally still consider Disgaea 1 and 2, as well as the spinoff game Phantom Brave, to be some of my favorite strategy RPGs, but many of Nippon Ichi's other outings haven't had the same appeal for one reason or another; mostly, they just seem to overdo the grinding/randomized elements aspect of their design and quickly become tedious to play, rather than fun.

Perhaps as an attempt to address this and return the series to its roots for long-time fans, Disgaea D2 pares down many of the elements addressed in later Disgaea games, streamlines some other elements that have been around since the beginning, and adds in a few new ideas of its own in order to give it a distinct feel.  The most prominent of these is the "Cheat Shop", which allows the player to freely adjust the difficulty of the enemies and the amount of experience, money and mana they receive from battles.  This not only allows you to funnel less useful things (like money) into better level gains or mana boosts, but also to freely adjust enemy levels for more efficient leveling, especially in the post-game where money is all but useless.  This also allows the player to freely toggle on the Land of Carnage mode for high-level play (eliminating the need to farm randomly-appearing items in the Item World), as well as a new mode called "Rasetsu" which drastically increases enemies' stats (and yes, it can be stacked with Land of Carnage mode for even more madness).

One of the franchise's more controversial additions, the Magichange mechanic (wherein a monster transforms into a temporary weapon for a human character, with stats based on the monster's own) has also been removed from D2.  Instead of that, we get monster mounting, which allows any humanoid unit to ride a monster unit, adopting their movement range and using them as a shield of sorts.  All damage directed at a mounted unit is taken from the monster's HP, and when they die, only the monster is removed from the field, leaving the humanoid unit safe.  There is also no turn limit for using units like this (unlike Magichange) and it grants new attacks depending upon the monster type mounted.

Likability is another mechanic introduced in D2.  All units' relationship with others are ranked between 0 and 5 shearts, with things like successful team attacks and mid-battle conversations boosting it and harming/killing one another with attacks lowering it.  Characters with higher Likability have a higher chance to perform Team Attacks, as well as doing greater damage in team attacks, combos and mounted attacks.  Of course, being Disgaea, one can also spend Mana to boost relationships between characters by passing a bill at the Dark Council, but the price is prohibitively high until the postgame.

Some other mainstay elements of the franchise were also streamlined.  The interface is now much tighter (paring about 11 menu options down into roughly 5), the Item Warehouse and Backpack are amalgamated into one and expanded to 999 slots, and item world Innocents no longer need to be stored on items - they can be stored in the "Innocents Warehouse" after being subdued and used to populate items later.  The much-maligned "Rarity Number" on items has also been abolished, with items now simply coming in Common, Rare and Legendary variants and getting boosts when paired with other equipment of the same rarity level.  Diagonal throwing has also been simplified, simply allowing the player to pick any square within their throw range rather than having to time a button press as the cursor moves between two preset 90 degree angles.

Characters as a whole also have a greater degree of customization, with the ability to mix and match Evilities between classes (humanoids getting two while monsters get a total of three) and each generic class having three different variations to use.  Color palettes can also be freely assigned rather than having to unlock them later, and each character also has three voice sets to choose from, adding another layer to the player's immersion.

One of the lacking elements of Disgaeas 3 and 4, to me at least, were their storylines; their characters were rather forgetttable overall and the stories felt like less-interesting retreads of earlier entries in the series.  Thankfully, Disgaea D2 addresses this as well; the returning characters are as distinct and hilarious as ever, delivering some truly hilarious dialog in the story scenes and in-battle dialog snippets.  The story itself also regains Nippon Ichi's sly sense of humor, incorporating many bad and nonsensical fan fiction tropes ("long lost" family members, gender swapping, characters having previously unrevealed superpowers, etc) yet making them all work well to serve the game's witty tone.  That self-awareness and deprecating style of humor is something that I don't think too many, if any, other RPG companies could pull off well, but Nippon Ichi succeeds here.

The game is not totally without problems, though.  There were numerous issues with lockups in the game, as well as oddities like characters being reduced to 1 HP after a battle (even when at full health at the battle's end) and certain attack animations simply freezing on certain stages.  Many of these were addressed in a patch, but I still had the game lock up under certain conditions; mostly related to casting specific spells on specific stages.  Still, I only encountered this on a few scattered maps, none of which are particularly difficult to complete without the spells in question, so it wasn't a deal breaker.

The other major problem I had with the later Disgaea games is still in effect as well.  DLC for the game is at its scummiest, giving the player a grand total of nineteen new playable characters at a price of $3 each, totaling up to $7 more than the game itself cost brand new.  Worse, they had the audacity to tie trophies to each of these characters, meaning that completionists will not be able to get 100% completion on their trophy lists without shelling out for every last one of them.  A pretty bad thing considering that the franchise is geared toward that very demographic!

Some hiccups aside, Disgaea D2 is a worthy sequel, returning the franchise to its roots while also introducing enough fresh elements to keep the experience from being a thoughtless retread.  The newly polished presentation, ability to fully customize one's party members and reduction of many of the game's arbitrary random elements also add to the experience, creating a tighter game that appeals to more casual fans while reducing the sheer amount of save-scumming for die hard players.  Disgaea D2 stands as proof that a bit of streamlining and a return to one's roots can be a very beneficial thing for a franchise.

Developer: Nippon Ichi Software
Publisher: Nippon Ichi Software
Platform: Playstation 3
Released: 2013
Recommended version: N/A

Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten

Is the fourth entry in Nippon Ichi's flaghship franchise worth a look, or has the series just grown stale?

The original Disgaea was a fresh take on the turn-based strategy RPG genre, featuring a largely irreverent storyline and atmosphere as well as having more puzzle-based gameplay than most strategy RPGs; rather than simply eliminating all the enemies on the board, the game would throw in curveballs like panels that would strengthen enemies, cause constant damage to the player each turn they stayed on them, serve as barriers that could only be bypassed by destroying guarded Geo Blocks, or even grant complete invincibility to units, among other effects.  This culminated in a game that effectively de-emphasized sheer power-leveling for casual playthroughs, yet simultaneously had more of it than perhaps any other RPG to that point for the more hard-core players - the maximum attainable level in the game was 9,999, and one could reset their level to 1 and level up all over again to attain even greater stats and become phenomenally powerful, which proved to be a necessary task to overcome and defeat the uber-bosses present in the post-game bonus levels.  Weapons and equipment were also equally customizable, with the rarest variants being able to hold up to eight "residents", defeated enemies that would bolster an item's stats when they were confined to it.  In short, it was a game that effectively appealed both to both more casual RPG fans with its sly writing and amusing characters, and the most die-hard of the bunch with the extremely nuanced and involved mechanics that became essential to master the post-game.

For these reasons and more, Disgaea proved to be a surprise hit despite slow initial sales and having graphics that would be more at home on the previous console generation.  Naturally, it was no surprise that a sequel would follow a few years later, possessing visuals more suited to a Playstation 2 release and expanding on its gameplay while retaining the same overall feel and charm.  A third game later followed on the Playstation 3 which, like the first game, trailed behind the current generation visually but kept much of the feel of the series.  Then in 2011 we got Disgaea 4, a game which, like Disgaea 2 before it, pushed the series into the current era with updated visuals and considerably more polish.

Not too much has changed overall on the gameplay front; Disgaea 4 still utilizes the same blend of turn-based gameplay and puzzle-solving as its predecessors.  Disgaea 3's Magichange feature also returns here, allowing monster units to turn into temporary weapons for human characters to wield and granting them new, powerful special attacks.  However, the amount of work involved to make this a viable strategy is still a significant one; losing a unit in exchange for one or two extra turns of damage generally isn't a good tradeoff unless it's a very significant boost, which usually won't be the case until a significant amount of post-game grinding and stat optimizing has been done.

Once it has, though, a few other fun features come into play in the game.  Creating giant monsters is now an option, causing two smaller monster units to fuse into one larger one with a significantly larger footprint on the battlefield, but also increased damage output and range.  They also gain the ability to displace smaller units simply by walking into them, which can clear a path for your smaller units to advance.  Giant monsters can also Magichange with human units once specific conditions are met, allowing human characters to wield a giant version of that weapon complete with all the derived stats of the giant monster, which is both awesome and hilarious.

Dual Magichange is also an option, allowing a player to wield two Magichanged weapons simultaneously, complete with all the pluses and minuses that description entails - losing two units, but gaining the stats and abilities of both for a temporary boost.  The major downside to this, however, is that the second weapon's statistics will overwrite those of the first accessory item the character has equipped, so careful management is required to get the most out of it.

The extended gameplay comes at a cost, however.  Maps in Disgaea 4 tend to be absolutely enormous, causing fights to drag on for upwards of thirty minutes at times.  When one of Disgaea's strong suits was its faster-paced gameplay in comparison to most turn-based strategy RPGs, this is a rather baffling turn for the series to take.  Furthermore, while the game offers more content, it also exponentially improves the amount of grinding required to take advantage of said content and fully complete the game - as in Disgaea 3, substantial amounts of micromanagement and save-scumming are required to get the maximum benefit from weapons, and unlocking the post-game Land of Carnage is also a major timesink, requiring collecting rare items from randomized dungeons that have a relatively small chance of appearing on any given visit.  Visits from redundant enemy groups are frequent and collecting key items is reliant on entering rooms that appear at complete random.  While a significant random element is par for the course of Disgaea games, here it really feels like Nippon Ichi was more interested in artificially lengthening the game, simply adding more steps to existing mechanics in order to keep people playing the game longer.  Which is fine for die-hard fans, but for gamers who tend to get bored with long stretches of repetition and little payoff, may be a turn-off.

Even on the more casual front, though, Disgaea 4 also does not highlight the series at its best; as mentioned, the over-long maps can start to wear on the player's patience.  But more significant than that is the game's storyline, which overall feels like a less interesting retread of earlier games in the franchise.  The storyline is a less-interesting copy of the latter half of the first Disgaea, with an evil force of humans causing invading the Netherworld and the protagonist vowing to stop them.  The characters are equally generic, rarely ascending beyond their archetypes, and the few that do just feel like less-interesting retreads of earlier characters in the series (Valvatorez and Artina in particular feeling like a more boring version of Adell and Rozalin).  A rather strange turn for the series to take, particularly when Nippon Ichi as a whole prides their games on their colorful characters and sharp, self-aware sense of humor.

The over-prevalence of downloadable content in the series also continues to be a problem, which has the unpleasant effect of making the series - and this game in particular - feel less like a determined effort by its developers and more like a cynical cash grab.  Large amounts of playable characters (including many favorites from earlier NIS games), new story campaigns, new modes that grant easier access to useful items, and so on, all sold for a few bucks apiece (and totalling more than the cost of a new copy of the game in all) just feels like a sleazy way to milk players for more money, especially since die-hard Disgaea players tend to be the completionist type and said extras usually have trophies tied to them, requiring you to buy most (if not all) of it to get a 100% completion rate. 

All in all, Disgaea has always a lot to see and do, but as the years have gone on, it feels like a lot of the passion has been drained from the franchise and it now just aims to be a voluminous time sink rather than a true labor of love.  Disgaea 4 is no different, offering up a rote sequel in every respect that proves just good enough to appease die-hard series fans.  For the less Disgaea-invested gamer, though, this is one you can safely skip.

Developer: Nippon Ichi Software
Publisher: Nippon Ichi Software
Platform: Playstation 3 / Playstation Vita
Released: 2011/2014
Recommended version: The PSVita release is definitely the superior version; it includes some extra content, as well as packaging in all of the DLC (both paid and free) of the Playstation 3 release.  It's also compatible with the Playstation TV, so you don't need to play the entire game on a tiny screen!